


Like the Shape of a Wave

by earz_wide_open



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Caring!Sam, Community: hoodie_time, Gen, Sick!Dean, crazy narrative structure!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 16:39:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/689143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earz_wide_open/pseuds/earz_wide_open
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Sam and Dean find a loophole in Dean's crossroads deal that frees him from it. Per Sam's wishes, the brothers decide to get away from the life. No sooner have they arrived at their "house by the sea" than Dean gets knocked flat by something awful – really awful. A series of snapshots spanning the course of a month, detailing Dean's struggle with illness and Sam's struggle to be strong for his brother. Sick-as-a-dog!Dean, Caring!Steadfast!Emotional!Sammy. (With a side of hungover!Dean).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like the Shape of a Wave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nwspaprtaxis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwspaprtaxis/gifts).



> itle and opening quote borrowed from Iron and Wine's "House by the Sea." Written fo nwspaprtaxis's hoodie_time h/c wish list – she wanted Sam taking care of a really sick Dean, preferably while retired in a house by the sea (with bonus points for spoon feeding, which does indeed happen at the end).

_There is a house by the sea_

_And an ocean between it and me._

 

Iron and Wine, "House by the Sea"

 

 

**\- Like the Shape of a Wave -**

 

 

****_A Toast_ ** **

 

Sam wakes up to the smell of whiskey.

 

It's still dark outside the car windows. There's no way of telling how long he slept. He stretches and addresses the source of the smell.

 

"We're drinking and driving now, Dean? Really?"

 

Dean grumbles something about "the fun police," cranks up the radio and belts the refrain to "Dazed and Confused."

 

Sam sighs and leans sideways in his seat.

 

"Dude, I don't know why you're bitching to me," Dean says. "No, really– we're doing what  _you_  wanted, Sammy. We're out – I mean, we're  _out_  out. And if we're gonna be out, we might as well raise a glass."

 

Sam rakes a hand through his hair. "You gotta be careful, Dean. You're still…"

 

"Twenty-eight goin' on 'Hell's eternal bitch?' Yeah– I get that." Dean's voice is dropping into growl territory. "So what, my crossroads parole officer is gonna see me boozing at the wheel and drag my ass to eternal damnation? My guess is that's not how it works."

 

"Just because we  _think_  we found a loophole in the crossroads deal doesn't mean you're out of the woods. Why else would we be driving out here?"

 

"R 'n' R… the waves… 'Cause  _you_  can't handle the job anymore... I dunno, man, I just wanna get a friggin'  _moment_  to not think about this crap."

 

Sam fiddles with the bit of rubber sealing that's peeling up by the edge of the window.

 

"Knock that off," Dean snaps.

 

"…I just don't get why you'd want to keep dangling yourself in front of monsters, when a lot of people worked really hard to get you this break."

 

"Guess that's the difference between you and me, huh, Sammy?"

 

"Don't be like that."

 

"Like what?"

 

"Like a dick, that's what."

 

Dean slams on the breaks.

 

"You think I don't know how lucky I am?” Dean barks. “I'm lucky as  _shit_. Trust me, the phrase 'too good to be true' is knockin' around in my brain as much as it is in yours. So until the next batch of crazy hits us, I'm gonna drink my booze, and drive my car, and live on the beach, and I'm gonna enjoy doing all of it."

 

"That's, uh… real healthy."

 

Dean ignores the sarcasm. "Damn straight."

 

He raises his flask in Sam's general direction with a lopsided grin, all grudges off, and says:

 

"To good health."

 

 

****_The Big 'When'_ ** **

 

 Sam's prayed far more in the past three weeks than he's used to. It's been easy to lose track of faith in the swamp of the past year's demon interactions and time loops and persistent dread. But prayer's managed to find its way back to him. It's good timing; he's fresh out of other options.

 

Out on the porch, there's a light that he turns on – an electric light made to look like an old oil lamp. In rare moments like this one, when the pain puts Dean to sleep, Sam will walk outside with that light on and watch the yellow grasses ripple, and he'll pray. The ocean is as good a listener as any, even though sometimes Sam aches to call Bobby or another human – to break he and Dean's vow of silence. They're off the grid now, far off, where sand and grasses and jagged rock meet seawater, 'perfect little marriages of nature' and all that.

 

There’s a glint of metal in the sand, maybe ten paces from where Sam’s standing. At first he thinks it might be a firefly, but he knows lack of sleep has to be messing with his head. Bugs don’t usually come near the beach. Too windy. He trudges over to investigate, ocean roaring ever louder. He bends down, and as the breeze cuts a sharp and jagged path through his hair he lifts a waterlogged flask out of the grainy earth.  _Fancy seeing you again_ , Sam thinks.  _Dean'll probably want you back when he's up for drinking._

 

A little voice in the back of Sam's head nags,  _That's a big 'when,' isn't it?_  Sam beats the voice back, deep breath in, deep breath out. It’s the waves talking. Dean's hanging in just fine. Getting better, even. This is not the eye of the storm – it's the beginning of the end.

 

Sam's so used to looking for omens everywhere, in the waves, in the sky… He knows it's a dangerous habit, especially now, but nature in all its visceral mystery jacks up his superstitious side. Get out into nature, to a place like the ocean, and it does all kinds of crazy things to you – some good, some definitely bad. At one point the salty currents had even swept Jess back to the front of Sam's brain; her memory is so strong and pure now that it repurposes all the space in the house that's been occupied by malady and anguish, and the ceaseless heartache of watching Dean fade. If anyone had told Sam at age nine that this was how things were going to go for him and Dean... Well, now he can’t remember what he would’ve believed at that age. Man, is he tired. He shakes sand out of his hair.

 

He forces his eyelids down and takes Occam's razor to his thought process, saving only the things he knows for certain, the no-brainers. He knows the name of the illness that's keeping Dean bedridden. He knows the emergency antibiotics he kept in the Impala are doing their job. He knows this because he knows Dean was better yesterday than the day before. He knows that every morning when Dean opens his feverish, briny green eyes, he asks  _How ya doing, Sammy_. And Sam responds  _Just glad to see you up, man._

 

Mornings are a blessing here. Sam doesn't think about it a lot, doesn't have the time or energy to think about it… But when the sun comes up, spreading its pinks and oranges across the beach and into the white shuttered windows, it's something to see. The cries of gulls pepper the air, and the perfume of salt and grass takes the edge off the otherwise indelible odor of vomit and cough syrup in the bedroom. Most importantly, the sunrise helps remind Dean of where he is: in a little blue-gray house next to the blue-gray ocean, with his brother, on Earth.

 

 _“Because– Hell couldn't possibly have sunrises like that,”_ Sam will say to Dean when he's having a particularly bad morning.  _"Logically, it_ can’t _be possible. You gotta remember that…"_

 

A low, muffled moan from the house rips through the still morning air. Dean's up again and Sam's already running, rubbing a long-fingered hand across his face, cursing himself for staying out as long as he has, for leaving Dean alone.

 

The little brother says a rushed  _Amen_  as he hurries inside. He doesn't care about locking the screen door this time. It can wait.

 

 

****_Bottom of the Ninth_ ** **

 

 The morning after the move marked the first time Dean ever asked Sam for help with an ailment without Sam sniffing out the problem first.

 

Sam chases the memories of the night they moved in like a dog chasing its tail – chases them back through the fog of sleeplessness, the hills and valleys of terror and relief. The mental pictures stored from that evening are pulses of a strobe light in his brain, taunting scraps of flashbacks.

 

He sees the knuckles of Dean's left hand stretched white against the black of the steering wheel, the fingers of his right hand clamped around the liquor-slick surface of the flask. Then the parting of the grass on the path to the shore, blades bowing down beneath the white headlight beams. Scent of old wood and salt in the house. Moving in a couple boxes – Dean starting to stumble over the threshold. Grizzly shadows lengthening under Dean's eyes as he races himself to the bottom of the bottle, hiccuping, because now what are they gonna do with themselves, drinking's the best idea so far. Dean on the beach, slinging the flask into the night-black waves, hooting a big Braveheart “Freeeeedoooommmm” before keeling over and biting the sand. The long trek back to the house, long because Dean can barely stay upright. The feel of Dean's wet, weakening grip around Sam's waist as he drags his older brother across the floor. Dean murmuring feverishly about the missed calls on his phone while Sam hauls the sandy covers over his shoulders,  _what are they gonna do now that we're out here Sammy, who's gonna help them, all those damn people..._

 

Cut to the next morning. Sunlight like a bright yellow torpedo lancing through the kitchen windows. Boxes still strewn everywhere, some half opened. Instant coffee smell. Seagulls. Dean staggering into the room in last night's clothes minus one sock, squinting hard against the light, sallow-faced, left hand scrunched up against his belly.

 

"...Threw up, Sammy."

 

Sam not saying anything. Stunned. Eyebrows arched. Waiting for the  _"Don't gimme that look, I'm fine,_ ” the macho cold shoulder.

 

Dean, defying expectations: “No, 'm not fine.”

 

Dean with the unneeded clarification: “All the damn whiskey from last night... Gotta cool my heels f'r a... I... Jeezus..."

 

Dean, knees folding, about to fall on the floor. Bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, fly ball... and it’s Sam Winchester coming in from the outfield for the catch, sliding across the linoleum, hands cupping under Dean’s arms.

 

A uniquely resigned voice Sam realizes he's never heard from his big brother:

 

"Figure you could help my ass t'bed?"

 

Sam covering Dean up for the second time in twenty-four hours. The feel of fleece between his fingers. Dean muttering a discomposed "Thanks" and coiling in on himself, probably thinking this is the worst he’ll feel for a long time. He’s wrong.

 

Fade to black, and… scene.

 

No, Sam decides. He's looked back at that night, examined it so many… God, it's gotta be a hundred times now, at least. He's grasping at straws, adding frustration to frustration. There's nothing there. Dean drank too much. Dean got himself a hangover. Sam picked him up off the floor. The only thing his brother hemorrhaged was a little dignity

 

Nothing off about it, unless you counted the fact that Dean didn't get out of bed the rest of that day – not to eat, drink, piss, puke, do a jig, you name it. As it turned out, Dean wouldn't get out of that bed for almost a month.

 

Breaks were hard to come by these days.

  

 

****_Seashells_ ** **

 

 The master bedroom of the house has the same old beechwood panelling as the rest of the place. Someone painted it all off-white, a long time ago, but now the paint's chipping, letting specks of dark wood peek through. Still, when the sunlight streams in at full blast it looks pleasantly lived-in, homey. It's a nice visual foil to the sick person in the bed by the window and the litter of home remedies piled on the bedside table.

 

Sam blusters into the room and is greeted by Dean's baffled and dismayed mug, about as pale as the paint on the walls and glazed with sweat. He's disoriented, trying to push himself up on the bed with one hand shoved spastically under the pillow, groping for his hunting knife. Doesn't take a genius to figure out Dean's waking up unfamiliar with his surroundings. This'll be the fifth mental episode of its kind throughout the course of the illness. Sam rushes forward, all muscle memory, thinking   _woah there, stopstopstopstopstop_ , to the chair that's become a permanent fixture at the edge of the bed. He gets there right as Dean's febrile brain catches up to his body.

 

" _Aagghhhhh_ owowowowow ow fuck'n  _ow_  sonofa _bitch_ …" Dean hisses sharply, screwing up his eyes, dry lips curling off his teeth. His voice is barely there, sandpapery rough and unbelievably weak, but the in-character profanity eases Sam's nerves. It's the most animated Dean's been since he was juiced up on delirium, and worlds more coherent. Sam's trying hard not to count his chickens, but he's starting to think his hunch about the antibiotics was right.

 

Dean's freckles pop on his bleached complexion, standing out like the dark bits of wood against the white paint on the bedroom walls. "Jesus, S'mmy, wha' th'hell…"

 

"Shhhh, sh sh," Sam cautions, easing Dean as gently as he can back down to the mattress. He gathers the comforter – pale yellow with a seashell pattern and baby blue trim – around Dean's pallid neck in a flaxen ring of fluff. "You gotta take it easy, man, we're safe, we're not hunting anything… or vice versa. We're fine. You copy?"

 

" _I'm_  sure 's hell not fine, S'mmy, there's… somethin' messed up…" Dean huffs quick breaths, his face twisting into an awful grimace. Sam's guts clench. Nothing gets past this one.

 

"Uh, yeah…" Sam says, searching for a way to sugarcoat it and coming up empty. If the last weeks have taught him anything about nursing, it's that Priority Number One is keeping Dean calm. "Yeah, there's definitely something wrong with you, but it's… it's gonna be alright, you're just a little sick and…"

 

"'A little'… my ass…" Dean grinds out through clenched teeth.

 

"Believe it or not, you're, uh… Well, you're actually a far cry better than you were before."

 

"How long…?"

 

Sam feels Dean's forehead. Still pretty hot. What else is new. "How long have you been laid up? This'll be week four," he says.

 

Dean's fever-widened pupils give off something like amazement. "Shit… Jeezus. Feels like I got hit by an eighteen wheel'r… Or a dinosaur… My damn  _skin's_  on fire… Where th'hell are we anyway…"

 

Sam's given this schpiel ten times, so he condenses it a little: "A house. On a beach, upper East Coast. We moved in almost a month ago, right before you got sick. It's clean here, no sign of anything supernatural ever having so much as dropped by."

 

"The deal…"

 

"Far as we know, your deal's still off. Demons haven't come around, hellhounds either. Seems like you're earthbound for the long haul."

 

"Huh… Coulda sworn I was in th'Pit…  Ugghhh..."

 

Dean's face seems to go even whiter, like someone unplugged a drain and let all his blood flow out. He shifts under the covers with painstaking gingerliness, trying to clamp in on himself, and ekes out a couple listless coughs. Sam is suddenly overwhelmed by the bitter and familiar taste of helplessness on the back of his tongue. Wherever Dean went while the delirium checked him out, he went there alone. It's the crossroads deal all over again, only with germs instead of demons and fevers instead of hellfire; ultimately, deep down, Dean has to handle it solo.

 

Dean swallows tenderly around all the stinging flesh in his throat, like he’s about to say something, and Sam cuts him off at the pass.

 

"Really, Dean, you gotta try to not talk," Sam says, like that will fix anything. "Your tonsils are a mess, and the rest of you's not so hot either. Figuratively speaking."

 

Dean seems to agree. The hand he pulls up to cover his forehead is waxy and trembly, raw where the rash from the fever is still fading. He stares at the mottled scarlet splotched across his knuckles and his red-rimmed eyes widen. "What the… Is this shit all over me? What th'hell kinda bug did I catch, AIDS?"

 

"Cute," Sam says. He unscrews the cap of an orange pill bottle from the bedside table. "Also, no talking. That's some redness from the fever, it's just on your arms and chest a little… It'll go away. As far as what got to you… I don't wanna freak you out with the Mayo Clinic stuff I dug up, but…"

 

"C'mon, Sam. I wanna know what was… next in line to roast my ass."

 

Sam swears he sees Dean give a shadow of a wink. Or maybe it's just the way his eyes are squinting from the pain.

 

 _"Shhhh,"_ Sam scolds. He spills a couple pills into his hand. "You at all familiar with 'rheumatic fever?'"

 

"'M not from… the freakin' dark ages… so nope."

 

"Hey, didn't I say not to talk, smartass?" Sam chastises, but he's grinning so wide it hurts; Dean's wisecracks are the most welcome and relieving thing he's heard in ages. "Just… shake your head yes or no," he encourages.

 

Dean rolls his heavy-lidded eyes – an act painful enough to provoke a wince – and shakes his head 'no.'

 

"Rheumatic fever," Sam continues, "is, uh… Well, it's what happens when strep throat hulks out."

 

Dean raises the outside corners of his eyebrows. "Sounds like a hell of ride…"

 

"You should know," Sam says, "you're the one who's been on it. So– if I give you some drugs, will you shut up... for me?"

 

The grooves of pain on Dean's face flatten out at the mere suggestion.

 

"Thought you'd nev'r ask, House," he croaks.

 

****_Bueller… Bueller…_ ** **

  

The morning after the Morning After the Move, Sam experimentally chucked a bucket at the under-the-covers lump he assumed was Dean's head.

 

It wasn't a big metal bucket or anything like that – just a small plastic one he'd found in the hall closet, the type kids used to build sandcastles, left behind by former inhabitants. It bounced off the puffy yellow covers and rolled onto the wood floor with a hollow clack.

 

Dean groaned a string of obscenities, some he seemed to have invented on the spot, and finished with a growly "Go 'way."

 

"Dude. You can't still be hungover."

 

The lump curled into a tighter lump.

 

"Throat's like a damn pincushion… Kept me up all freakin' night…  _Aghh_ …"

 

"…You're probably dehydrated from yesterday."

 

"Not just that… way fucking worse…"

 

Sam was starting to wonder if Dean was serious; his voice sounded like an angry goat caught in a woodchipper.

 

"Just… get off your ass and drink a ton of water. Or hair of the dog, whatever."

 

"Not kidding, dude. Think I have a fever…"

 

Sam felt a shitty combination of bitterness and sympathy. He'd told himself to take it easy on Dean, but bitterness won out and spurted from his lips unchecked:

 

"What do you want me to do about it? You didn't take care of yourself and now you feel like crap. That's your responsibility. There's Advil in the trunk, help yourself."

 

"...Can't get up."

 

" _Dude_. You're pulling a Ferris Bueller on me? Seriously?"

 

With a handful of pained grunts, Dean rotated in bed to face Sam at about the pace taquitos turned on a slow roasting spit at 7 Eleven.

 

"Why in hell," Dean rasped with as much wrath as he could drum up, "would I  _fake_  sick in a goddamn  _beach_  house?"

 

A glance at Dean's face was all the proof Sam needed. The poor guy was ashen, fever-flushed and watery eyed, his jaw a little puffy from what had to be swollen glands and tonsils, hair crimped and matted onto his sweaty brow. Sam half expected to see little cartoon bubbles popping over his head.

 

Sam frowned, all bitterness forgotten. "Jesus, Dean… You look…"

 

"Like Hell. Ironic. I know." Dean winced hard and massaged a clammy hand on his throat, right under his jaw. "Illness should be frickin' illegal on beaches…"

 

"'Kay, I'm going to get the Advil. And some water. You want salt water to gargle with?"

 

"Hell no."

 

"Your loss, it would help… Anything else?"

 

Dean heaved a shaky sigh and squirmed deeper under the comforter, so that only the crinkly tips of his hair met the light of day. "Can a' ginger ale if we got it," he groaned. "Stomach's bitchin' at me."

 

"See what I can do."

 

Sam turned to go and heard Dean's scratchy voice behind him.

 

"So what turned you into a mother hen all the sudden? I sure as hell don't deserve it, 'specially after you had to 'Baywatch' my drunk ass back here from the beach."

 

Sam scratched his head in an exaggerated effort at nonchalance.

 

_I almost lost you to hellhounds. I'm not gonna lose you to the flu._

 

"I dunno. I uh… moved all the stuff in, got nothing better to do than make sure you don't croak."  _I never have anything better to do than that._

 

"Weird choice of phrasing, but I'll take it."

 

Sam forced his mouth to form a thin hard line of a smile.

 

"You better," he said, and left to grab the med kit.

 

There was an antibiotic pack in the trunk – one full round of pretty potent stuff that Sam had tucked away the last time they'd been able to do a quick pharmacy raid. He left it behind when he got the supplies: the pack was for dire emergencies, and this was probably a twenty-four hour thing, at the worst.

 

 

****_Symptoms May Include_ ** **

 

  _"Rheumatic fever is an inflammatory disease that can develop as a complication of inadequately treated strep throat."_

 

A week and a half after Sam threw the bucket at Dean's head, Dean reached down, grabbed said bucket off the floor in a frantic rattle of fingernails on plastic, and vomited into it. He didn't stop for three hours. Sam moved the fated chair over to the bed after helping a shaking, enervated Dean back from his second home in front of the toilet bowl.

_"Rheumatic fever is most common in 5- to 15-year-old children, though it can develop in younger children and adults…"_

 

Dean's fever doused him in delirium that night. When he wasn't heaving, he was laughing. He thought it was especially funny that his hands felt like they were being sawed off at the wrists. Sam tried to laugh along while applying cold compresses; he didn't want Dean to notice the beginnings of frustrated tears welling in his eyes.

 

_"The onset of rheumatic fever usually occurs about two to four weeks after a strep throat infection. Symptoms may include abdominal pain, fever, painful and tender (or red, hot or swollen) joints..."_

 

Dean was mostly lucid the next few days, but he kept grabbing suddenly at his chest and grimacing when he thought Sam wasn't looking. He shivered whenever Sam pulled down the seashell comforter, and griped about the bed being a "goddamn sauna" when he pulled it back up. He spent most of his time hunched around his stomach, never unfurling his sore limbs unless he absolutely had to. He could keep down water (so no real need for a hospital, thank god), but turned away anything else.

 

_"…chest pain, fatigue, shortness of breath, flat painless rash with a ragged edge..."_

 

A couple days later, Dean started to ramble with his barely-there voice about how lucrative dogfighting with hellhounds would be, and what Mom would've thought about iPhones if she were still alive. Both of these subjects provoked a good deal of laughter from Dean, until he couldn't take the pain the laughing caused and fell into a fitful sleep. Sam held him still while taping ice packs to his wrists and knees to keep the swelling down.

 

_"...sensation of rapid, fluttering or pounding heartbeats (palpitations), outbursts of unusual behavior such as crying or inappropriate laughter…"_

 

The sun was rising again. Dean wasn't watching it; he was curled on his side, too weak to pull the covers over his eyes so Sam wouldn't see him crying.

 

"This's exactly how I 'magined it, S'mmy…" he murmured.

 

The tears on Dean's cheeks caught the glimmer of the waxing sunlight. The pain in his gut and knees and arms had kept him up for two days, two nights now. It was the morning of day number three. His delirium had burnt itself to the bone and left in its wake a strange, sorrowful lethargy. Sam had stayed at his side the entire time.

 

"Imagined what?" Sam asked from his bedside chair, even though he knew the answer.

 

_"Rheumatic fever can cause permanent damage to the heart, including damaged heart valves and heart failure…"_

 

"Hell," Dean said wearily, his voice clogged up and cracked. "This's Hell."

 

 _Maybe you didn't save him after all, Sam. You can see it now, can't you – he's sinking… And when he's gone, he'll end up in the same place the deal would have landed him anyway… He already_ thinks _he's there, Sammy. What more is left, hm?_

 

Sam reached under the covers and took the hot water bottle away from Dean's torso so he could refill it.

 

"Watch the sunrise, Dean," he said, jaw clenching, and walked briskly to the kitchen.

 

While the sink was running, Sam stuck his face in the freezer; the cold kept him from screaming.

 

****_Pascal's Wager_ ** **

 

 The night before he discovered the Mayo Clinic article on rheumatic fever, Sam prayed with his hands clamped together in one white-knuckled fist. When that didn't feel like it was doing anything, he went out to the beach. It was raining in thick gray sheets.

 

Looking back on it, he thinks he remembers yelling unintelligible things at the ocean, and the ocean screaming in return, matching his small, hoarse human voice with a big black churning cry.

 

He remembers hearing "Heat of the Moment" playing in the back of his mind and screaming louder to drown it out. He remembers the feel of wet sand under his knees.

 

He gave Dean the first dose of emergency antibiotics just as the sun began to inch over the waves that morning. It was the last thing he could think of to do. An hour later, he finally got a good enough Internet connection to dig up the article.

 

It would only be twenty-four more hours before Dean woke up swearing and talking about dinosaurs and calling Sam "House."

 

They were the longest twenty-four hours of Sam's life.

 

****_Sunrise_ ** **

 

 "You have piss poor aim with that thing, Sam, you know that?"

 

"Well… your mouth's just not big enough."

 

"Heyheyheywatchit, Christ–  _again!_ Spill soup on my hoodie one more time…"

 

"It's not even  _your_  hoodie, Dean! And you were talking– what part of  _'here comes the freaking airplane'_  does your mouth not understand?"

 

"Bitch."

 

"Jerk."

 

"If this makes me ralph, I'm aimin' for your shoes."

 

"It's just chicken broth… with stars. Okay, be  _ready_  this time. And shut up so I don't spill."

 

Sam doesn't tell Dean that the reason he's spilling the soup is because he can't hold his hand steady around the spoon – he's shaking through waves of overwhelming beautiful bittersweet exhausting relief.

 

Dean woke Sam up fifteen minutes ago with an expectant "Hey… Hey Sammy," like a kid waking up a parent at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning. After asking how Sam was doing, Dean piped up, "So what's the food situation around here?"

 

Sam could've burst out crying right then and there.

 

Dean's still tucked under the big yellow comforter with the seashells on it; Sam is finally starting to like the pattern, especially in the morning sunlight. Dean's own attempts to feed himself ended in a lot of hissing and swearing and cramped up joints, so it was Sam to the rescue. Other than the trouble with movement, Dean's on the up and up – his color is better, his voice stronger, and every time Sam looks at him he sees more light behind his eyes.

 

After Dean finishes the soup and makes it through a good half hour without 'ralphing,' Sam helps him walk out the back door, just a couple steps into the sand, to watch the sunrise for real instead of through the window of his sickroom. It's as pink and gold as it is every morning, but today the waves are calmer than they've been before. The whole ocean holds itself still, a giant flashing mirror to the star rising over it.

 

"Another day in paradise, huh?" Dean says, leaning heavily against Sam's shoulder.

 

Sam, finding himself unable to speak around the lump in his throat, just nods.

 

"Hey…" Dean wonders absently, "Where'd that flask of mine get to, anyway?"

 

Sam runs a hand through his hair, shrugs, lays the hand on Dean's shoulder to steady him.

 

"No idea," he says.

 


End file.
